Artificial Intelligence has presented itself in many different forms over the recent years. However, one very recent trend that many may have seen is the rise of AI in art and media. This is deeply concerning as it is putting artists out of work, due to the fact that one could just enter a prompt into an AI program and have an image or sequence for free rather than employing an artist by commissioning them. This sentiment and method is present in commercials, movie posters and even art pieces currently up for sale.
One of the ways AI is present in art is the existence of AI art pieces for sale. This comes in many forms, but the most common types of images seem to be abstract and landscape pieces generated by AI. It is somewhat fitting that abstract art would be a very common genre to be quickly overrun with AI contemporaries, considering the fact that abstract art focuses on things that people don’t see or perceive in their everyday lives or changes the perception of a familiar form to people.
However, there is purpose behind abstraction, it is very rarely ever simply meaningless. Abstract art offers a different way to look at things in one’s everyday life, and it conveys certain feelings through images not known to average perception of the world.
On the other hand, AI generated abstract art has no meaning, thought or purpose behind it. It simply borrows elements from already established abstract art, and just rearranges them or mashes them together in a meaningless empty representation of the genre.
AI cannot come up with anything truly new, at least for now. This is due to the fact that AI is fed already existing information, and in the case of art, pieces and visual representations. This actively kills any sort of creativity, as any AI generated piece is simply just a Frankensteined collection of already existing art.
Humans have been changing and evolving their art for years. Who knows what type of artistic genres will be created and established in future decades. There is theoretically no ceiling or cutoff to the progression and expansion of art due to the fact that all people are different and new ways of thinking and brand new ideas come about as the years go by.
With AI, there is absolutely no way of progression as anything it could ever generate quite literally needs to be already done. Art is inherently human, people pour their lives into art simply for the sake of expressing themselves and for the chance of showing others the way that they perceive the world.
All human art has purpose, even if it is a small one, and there is always something that is trying to be conveyed through art. With AI, none of this is present. There is no purpose, the AI simply receives a prompt and follows instructions.
Another form of art, more specifically graphic and illustrative design, is movie posters. This is something that not only replaces graphic designers, but sets a precedent for other producers within the filmmaking industry that it is completely fine to use AI to generate movie posters.
One recent example is the indie film distribution company, A24 using AI generated posters as promotional material for the film “Civil War.” The posters have obvious geographical errors, the most obvious depicts the Marina Towers in Chicago on completely different sides of the Chicago river, which is completely and obviously not even remotely accurate to their positions in reality as both towers sit side by side on the same side of the river.
It is extremely hypocritical that A24, which is one of, if not the biggest distributor of indie films, would use AI in the posters for an upcoming movie. AI actively puts aspiring artists out of work, and to turn around and distribute an indie film that they have acquired using AI is extremely shameful and speaks to where the company’s priorities really are.
Another example of AI being blatantly used in graphic design concerning film is in a brief image that appears in “Late Night with the Devil.” The film is structured as a 70s talk show segment and the film’s visual style is heavily centered around that aspect. During intermissions in the segment, there are title cards that appear to mimic those presented during real talk shows during commercial breaks.
These title cards are obviously AI generated, and are admittedly a small aspect of the film in the grand scheme of things, yet the precedent they set is much more important. For something so little, an artist could have easily been hired to create a title card for the intermission rather than using AI to save time and money.
If low budget or time was the problem, then there could have been other ways to work around it like not including the title cards at all, diverting resources away from other aspects of production, or finding some sort of other work around just as so many past filmmakers plagued by low budgets have done in the past.
The slowly growing presence of AI in art and media is concerning not particularly because of the subject material, but because of what it spells for the future. If the incorporation of AI grows, then that future could be one of many artists being put out of work, the widespread presence and distribution of hollow AI art, and the decline of creativity.